Museum, Education and Visual Culture Practices: Museums in Turkey

Abstract

Modern approach evolved modern museums as dialogue centres which make close contact with visitors based on learning in order to present its exhibition objects. Along with twenty first century, being one of the most important places among the social functions of museums, “education” has almost been one of the traditional functions of them. Besides the educational facilities which museums provide visitors, they should also develop their physical structures in a contemporary line, and reconsider them in a way that highlights individual experience and visitor interaction during the time spent in there. In order to maximize interaction between visitors and museums, museum education which is developed by using pedagogical methods and grounding on various values, concepts and information has a close relation with visual culture that is an interdisciplinary concept. Visual culture has put popular objects into museums and been an important subject on which modern museums focused in order to provide their sustainability. Modern museums produce information and aim to spread information to all classes in a society by using educational activities; also when they are considered as living places, they are used to practice the functions of visual culture. These practices have been helpful for developing information technologies in museums especially for the last thirty years and, resulted in implementing a structural reform and revisions in regard to integrating these technologies with museum perception. In the frame of these revisions, online technologies, simulations, interactive presentations and digital exhibitions are at the first place. These chances that took place in museums have been the source for from the collections of these institutions to their policies and also from the use of human resources to digitalizing of their activities. The purpose of this study is to identify the visual culture activities which take place in modern museums in the framework of educational activities, and to display practice samples in Turkish museums in detail. The study is a result of a descriptive survey model research that contains samples regarding visual culture practices in the world and Turkish museums. The study is limited with state and private museums which are tied to Turkish Republic Ministry of Culture and Tourism and inspected by the relevant ministry. Visual culture practices that took place in these museums are gathered by using structured interview forms and commented by analyzing content analysis.